


You Can't Stay

by ElementalSides (Syrika)



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Afterlife, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Depression, Existential Horror Reference, Ghost with a Lonely Roommate, Grim Reaper Virgil, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Spirits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-14 15:23:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18478984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syrika/pseuds/ElementalSides
Summary: Roman is a ghost haunting his previous apartment. Well, "haunting" is a strong word. Roman knows the current occupant is going through some hard times, and he really just wants to make the guy happy.No, if anyone is being haunted, it's Roman. Because the Grim Reaper won't leave him alone.





	You Can't Stay

**Author's Note:**

> It is I, the-elemental-sides! Super excited to be bringing my Sanders Sides stuff to AO3. Let's ease into the angst, shall we?

The Grim Reaper was omnipresent: a shadowy, looming force, a constant warning, and a bleak reminder of his fate. Yet somehow, it was comforting that he always checked up on Roman like a doting parent. In the Reaper’s own words, he was only trying to protect him.

“Look at you,” the Reaper scoffed, meeting Roman in one of the shadowy corners of the apartment. “You’re fading away. This is no place for a spirit.”

“If you’ve told me once, Virge,” Roman said, crossing his ghostly arms, which were in fact getting more translucent by the day, “you’ve told me a thousand times. I am not going with you.”

The Reaper scowled deeply, black lines etched into his face beneath his hood. “I regret telling you my name.”

“You’ve said that before too.”

But Virgil, the Grim Reaper, for all his pessimistic predictions of Roman’s imminent destruction, wasn’t one to give up on a lost spirit. At least once a week he would appear in the apartment that Roman housed to make his plea.

“Come with me to the afterlife.”

“No.”

And Roman stayed.

He stayed for _him,_ the man occupying the apartment. The one who had no idea that Roman had died here; he only knew the rent was cheap. Beneath his kind, radiant exterior, this man, Patton, was in deep distress. And nobody knew but Roman.

After death, Roman’s view of the world took on a tinge like watercolor, alive and shifting, and there were times when sadness bled out of Patton like black paint. It made him determined to stick around and try to patch up that feeling of emptiness. The sadness was achingly familiar to Roman from when he was alive—he was literally a kindred spirit, a pun he thought Patton would appreciate—and he made it his ghostly mission to bring Patton joy.

He sang in the early mornings and harmonized with the birds. He chased away spiders who dared to breach Patton’s home. He drew murals in the shower steam on the mirror. He’d tried to write his name once, but Virgil had forbidden it. According to him, Roman was pushing it as it was.

His ways of interacting with the world were limited, but Roman was nothing if not creative. Sometimes, it worked. Patton would stop and smile, admire the mirror, maybe remember to take his medicine for once, the scatterbrain, and both of their worlds would be brighter for that one day.

What frustrated Roman most was that he couldn’t leave the apartment. He could hardly get ten feet down the hallway. Once, Roman made it all the way to the elevator, but as he was propelled further and further down he realized he’d made a horrible mistake. Nausea boiled inside him like hot oil. He attempted to phase into the elevator shaft to escape, but he was consumed by dizzying pain before blacking out completely.

He woke up hours later, back in the apartment, with Virgil’s concerned face hovering over him. His hood was down. “That was stupid,” he scolded as Roman sat up in a daze.

“I was only trying...I only wanted to—“

“Don’t you _get_ it, you moron? It’s this apartment, the place that you died, that’s sustaining your life source now. Not Patton. If you run out of energy, you’re gone, poof. That’s why you should let me—“

“Just stop,” Roman snapped. “...Please? I appreciate the help and all, Creeper, but I’m not going anywhere. I don’t know how I can make that any more clear.”

Virgil looked at him fiercely, concern and anger and resignation battling in his eyes. When the door unlatched and Roman immediately turned all his attention to Patton’s entry, Virgil gave up and melted away into black smoke. “...This isn’t ending here.”

Weeks passed.

Little things, like how Roman used to leave a cupboard open to remind Patton to eat, now required intense concentration. Moving anything heavy left him dizzy for hours.

It broke his heart to see how steadily Patton’s mood could deteriorate. He’d be full of giddiness and delight one minute when he came home from work, and then, like clockwork, he’d sink down, down over the hours into a funk that left him falling asleep with his glasses still on and his laptop still running at four in the morning. The next morning, he’d wake up (always so close to being late) and start the cycle over. Roman feared one day Patton wouldn’t get out of bed.

There was still hope. From extensive snooping, Roman learned that Patton had a close friend named Logan, a high school teacher. He liked ties and a certain kind of jam. That was all Roman needed to know about him. He didn’t care who it was as long as someone was there for his Patton.

Logan’s phone number was stuck on a whiteboard on the fridge amidst a cacophony of other sticky notes. In Roman’s opinion, this number was the most important of all. If Roman knew anything from his own experiences, being alone for long stretches of time was what was exacerbating Patton’s mental health to the breaking point. If he’d only get together with his friend, just once a week, just for coffee, he could reconnect with the world. He’d have someone to talk to. He’d have something to look forward to on bad days. Above all, Roman saw Logan as a way to keep Patton grounded.

There was no need for Patton to feel so lifeless and alone when Roman was the one who was already dead.

And he _tried_ to get his plan in motion. He’d ruffle the notes when Patton walked by, sing the numbers at the top of his voice (individual words were too hard, but Patton had always been able to hear the faint warbling of a song), and try with all his might to communicate.

By now it was easier for Roman to see the floor through him than his own arm, and he had to grasp for things without knowing where his fingers were. Even then, pens and pencils slipped through his hands. He tried to type on Patton’s laptop, so carefully, one key at a time, but Patton hadn’t plugged it in, and Roman spent a night watching with horror as the battery ticked down and the screen shut off, erasing his message permanently an hour before Patton woke up.

Virgil came back. Patton had fallen asleep on the couch one night, and Roman curled up gloomily in the armchair next to him. Both were exhausted from the day’s work, though for different reasons.

A freezing force rushed over him, and suddenly Roman had been thrown through the couch and against the wall, pinned by a scythe at his throat.

“That is enough,” the Grim Reaper growled with a layer of darkness coating his voice, and Roman hadn’t been scared of him for a long time, not since Virgil had grudgingly revealed his name and Roman laughed at him, but he was terrified now. “Like it or not, you’re coming with me.”

“You can’t—“ Roman gasped.

“Can’t I? Do you think I’ve never broken a few rules? Do you know what’s waiting for you if I don’t save your spirit, Roman? Nothing. Can you imagine that, an eternity of nothing? I’ve seen it.” Virgil’s eyes were wide and dark, and piercing violet flashed within them. “We’ve all seen it, we’ve all feared it, and that’s why we try so hard to keep stubborn, lost, _stupid_ souls like you safe. Why won’t you let me take you home? Why is one mortal worth an eternity of nothing?”

“Because,” Roman choked, and he noticed that in the pitch-black light emanating from Virgil’s robes, he could see bits and pieces of his own form breaking off and dissolving. “He’s not lost yet, Virgil. I _am_. It’s too late for me, but there’s still hope for Patton. He can—he can still be saved. I’m not letting this apartment claim another victim.”

He clawed at the sharp steel of the scythe, and Virgil noticed and slightly loosened his grip.

“You _tried_ to save him,” he told Roman with a quiet, exhausted gentleness, like a parent who’s had the same argument one too many times. “You tried. You failed. It’s time to go to sleep.”

“Not while he’s still here,” Roman rasped with a fierceness that didn’t match his frame, which had faded to a bare outline against the wall. “Not when there’s a chance.”

Virgil seemed to be considering his next words carefully. “...Then.” He released Roman fully and stood up. He pulled up his hood and gripped his scythe in one hand.

“Wait...” Roman struggled to stand, but now each movement sent a wave of dizziness through him, leaving him paralyzed.

Like a living shadow, Virgil glided over the ground and toward Patton’s sleeping form. “Then I’m ending this, Roman.”

“What are you doing? Virgil! No! _NO!”_

Ignoring Roman’s shriek of horror, Virgil swung his scythe through Patton like a bat...and Patton’s own ghostly form, flickering with pale blue light, sat up inside his body and gasped. Virgil cast his scythe aside and grew until he was ten feet tall, looming over Patton at an unnatural angle.

“Your friend is going to die,” he boomed in that dark, double-edged voice. “He’s going to die someday and so are you.”

Patton’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.

“Do you know who I am? I’m Death. I am the Grim Reaper. And I’m getting real sick of this.”

“I…”

“Take my advice, now. Contact him. Call him. Let him know how much you care. Because I’m coming for you. And you’re not gonna know what day will be your last.” He pointed at Patton, and a crackling, dark purple portal, radiating cold, rent the air behind him.

Patton nearly fell off the couch, but his spirit was still connected to his body by the legs. He moved what he could, twisting his torso and raising his hands placatingly. “I didn’t mean for it to get so out of hand! I promise!”

“Promises don’t mean much to corpses.”

Virgil’s scythe reappeared in his hand, and with a tap on his forehead, Patton’s spirit’s eyes rolled up in his head and he collapsed.

Virgil dropped his arms, and the stifling energy faded from the room. He shrank several feet and pulled off his hood. As he rubbed his temples, he looked almost human.

“There. I hope you appreciate the favor. I’ll never hear the end of it for showing myself to a mortal.”

Roman shivered like he had a fever. “You...scared him pretty badly. I mean, not that I’m not grateful. But that was a little extreme.”

“Hey, it’s what I do.” He gave Roman a crooked smile. “Keeping up a dark persona is the best way to get someone’s guard up.”

“Do you think it worked?”

“There’s power in a little fear. Call it motivation. When you’re running on fumes, a little goes a long way.”

He clasped Roman’s hand and helped the intangible spirit to his feet. “Now, are you ready to go, buddy? Seriously...all he needed was a wake-up call. He has strength. You should trust in that.”

Roman cast his eyes at Patton. In the real world, he had woken up, and he was blinking at the ceiling with fear and confusion. It was as if it’d only been a nightmare.

“Good,” Roman breathed. “Yeah, I’m good.”

Arm in arm, Roman as unsteady as a child, the Grim Reaper led him to the portal still swirling in the center of the room. The demonic purple light had faded from it, and now it was a clear, soft gold. Suddenly, in the light of the portal, Roman gasped. “He’s looking at us! Virgil! He sees me!”

It was true; Patton had his eyes fixed unmistakably on Roman. And then he smiled. “It’s you…” he croaked. “The drawings, the voice...it’s you, isn’t it?”

Faced with him, Roman suddenly had stagefright. But he grinned back. “It’s me, all right. Your specter in shining armor.”

Roman’s voice warped toward the end of his sentence, and Virgil quickly guided him into the portal. But even in the void of shimmering light, Roman could hear the faded echo of Patton’s voice.

It sounded like he was saying “...thank you.”

 ~*Q*~

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by "Patton and the Lonely Ghost" by princelogical, but I threw in my favorite trope, Grim Reaper Virgil, just to spice things up. You can find the original posting of this fic, plus links to its inspiration, on Tumblr @ the-elemental-sides.


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